


No Glory Descends

by gatty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Crossover, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-07
Updated: 2011-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:44:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatty/pseuds/gatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vriska Serket is in control. In control of her life; in control of her actions; certainly in control of her emotions.</p><p>Vriska Serket is a liar.</p><p><i>Warnings for dubcon.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	No Glory Descends

**Author's Note:**

> All my thanks go to [urban_Anchorite](http://urbananchorite.tumblr.com/). Her midwifery, beta'ing, and general support were all without measure. Thank you!

_Action is transitory - a step, a blow.  
The motion of a muscle - this way or that -  
‘Tis done, and in the after-vacancy  
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed_  
\- The Borderers, III:1539, _William Wordsworth_

 

 **Slytherin Common Room, Seventh Year**

Vriska sits back on her heels and holds the flask of liquid up to the pale November light. A crumbling tome liberated from the Restricted Section of the Library is propped open against her trunk at a page with a much faded illustration. The liquid is almost the same shade of chalky blue. Her nose wrinkles as she holds it up to smell. Close enough. It’s taken two months of failed attempts but this time is looking promising. She decants it into a screw top bottle, which she puts in the deep pocket of her robes. Having read over the section entitled Application, she puts the book back into her trunk, and resets the locking charm. An experiment cannot go untested. Nor can an opportunity go wasted. Vriska Serket has what she would not be ashamed to called a flash of inspiration.

It is not hard to pour a little of the liquid into Dave’s pumpkin juice at dinner. She has cast a simple adhesive charm on the cutlery on Gryffindor table, so both Dave and Terezi are fully occupied in their prefectural duties dealing with a clutch of distressed first years with spoons hanging off their tongues and hands trapped around their forks. Vriska swoops down on the Gryffindor table, crowing in delight at their predicament. No one sees the bottle come out of her robes, or notices the sour, gone-off milk smell now hanging round. Terezi drives her off with a threatened batwing hex, and sits back down opposite Dave. Vriska doesn’t go far. He drinks the spiked juice pretty quickly. She leans forward in anticipation; the book wasn’t clear exactly how this was supposed to work.

What happens is: Dave goes green and struggles up from the bench looking like he’s going to puke. And puke he does, right down Vriska’s front as he slams into her in his haste to exit the hall. There’s the stench of off milk mixed with pumpkin and stomach acid. She is rigid, the warm patch spreading, soaking through her shirt. She imagines the stomach acid breaking down the cotton threads, seeping through to touch her skin. Dave doesn’t seem to realise what’s happened; his eyes aren’t focusing, his skin ashen. He sways on the spot for a moment, then does a elegant head-first dive onto the stone floor. He is saved from severe concussion only by Vriska’s legs as he takes her down with him. Her arse is smarting, tailbone sending a dull ache up her spin. This is distinctly not going as she might have hoped. Just her luck to have brewed up a purgative instead of a love potion. Though how many times had she told Karkat his shitty romance films made her want to vom? She would prefer if life chose sometimes not to be quite so literal.

Dave’s head is flip-flopping on her thighs, a thick chunky streak of orange running straight down her front to Dave’s vomit smeared face. He makes some kind of horrible burbling noise, little spit bubbles forming at the corner of his mouth, and prises his eyes open to blink at her. Once, twice, then he’s gone, head lolling back, orange slick drying on his chin. His head is heavy, and unexpectedly boney. She can see right up his nose. He needs to blow it. Her mouth pulls back into a grimace. Experiment over.

***

The next potion she plucks out of the experiment pit in the concealed base of her trunk is a levitation elixer. It only gets them about three inches off the ground but she’ll label that a success. She and John spend three hours gliding round Hogwarts sneaking up on people and pretending to be possessed or undead until it wears off just as they’ve reached the middle of the lake. She is soggy and cold and fights a runny nose of the rest of the week but it was entirely worth it and excellent in every respect. She and John are too busy brainstorming levitation pranks in class for her to notice Dave. He is looking at her and not at the diagrams on the blackboard when he is called on to answer a question, and comes as close to looking flustered as anyone has ever seen a Strider. John feels this is noteworthy enough to enchant several planes made out of their worksheets and send them across to spike into the side of his head. Dave has got his poker face back though, and just returns the planes which explode on arrival. John looses both eyebrows but Vriska draws them back in with marker pen.

She and John are officially barred from in-class interaction for the rest of the term.

“Understandably,” John says.

“Bollocks,” is Vriska’s comment, “but tragedy and misfortune are my lot.”

A week later she and Dave are paired for a research project. Dave has somehow edged his way to stand next to her, back turned slightly and hands shoved deep in his pockets. She claps an arm round his shoulders when they are handed their assignment on multifaceted illumination charms, and pronounces them studybuddies and that he must pay very close attention to her as she can definitely raise his marks if only he is ready to receive her wisdom. He wriggles out of her grasp like she is toxic waste, putting a good foot between them. He seems set on this foot of space, she realises. He sits so far away from her at their desk that it’s hard to share research texts; when she leans over to show him something he leans away, gaze fixed in front of him. She purposefully lets their fingers touch when she hands him her notes and he recoils, dropping them on the floor.

“God be more of a dick why don’t you, Strider,” she says, watching him pick up the notes. “A girl could get pretty offended you know.“

He opens his mouth, then shuts it, staring furiously at her feet.

“Whatever, cockface.”

She turns on her heel, stalking back towards the Slytherin common room. When she turns at the end of the corridor, she catches him out of the corner of her eye. He is still stood outside the classroom, pole straight, heap of parchment scrunched up in his fist.

***

They roll through December, managing their project through exchanged notes. It is the last day of term, and she is still waiting for him to clarify his notes on theurgical physics. Her trunks are packed, and the Hogwarts Express will be at the station tomorrow morning bright and early to ferry students back to London. She has decided she couldn’t care less about the project over the holidays; she has more important things to do with her last day at Hogwarts. Viciously hungover is the travel style of choice for seventh years, so naturally Vriska leads the charge when they descend en masse on the Three Broomsticks. It is looking to become as fine a disaster of an evening as has ever been spent by dubiously legal drinkers. Eridan has turned up in a pair of leather trousers and a copious amount of body glitter, his only aim in life to grope anyone venturing near him on the dance floor. Vriska is falling out of her dress both ends and has fashioned a MLARP thigh holster into a hip flask holder. She has filled the hip flask with whiskey filched from the headmaster’s personal supplies during a high action raid on his office that was carried out by a carefully planted network of impressionable young students. Vriska will admit, she has to sit back and admire her own genius when she thinks of the elaborate levels of subtle manipulation and cunning she has achieved. This school will be nothing without her.

The wooden bench is sticky against her bare thighs. She peels herself off to readjust her dress. There is a mess of cards spread out on their table, a mixture of playing cards, chocolate frog cards, and an battered exploding snap deck. She and John find Dave brooding in a badly lit corner booth, hunched over a bottle of what looks like smuggled in discount Vodka with a label written purely in consonants. He is drinking it out of a pint glass with a thousand yard stare. This is of course a situation not allowed to continue as, “this is a party! No one can be sad at a party!” Or something Vriska’s not entirely sure she agrees with, but watching John attempt to perform the new genre of card trick he claims to be inventing is worth at least forty percent of her attention. This figure goes up to sixty after she tips some of her firewhisky into John’s butterbeer.

John’s eyebrows are still mostly marker pen so he’s taking little care with the exploding portion of his trick. She wonders with the dim lighting and his sunglasses if Dave can see much of anything at all. He’s not spoken for a while, he might even be asleep for all they know.

“Hey, coolkid,” she quips kicking him under the table, “what’s your beef? Terezi making you wear a fursuit in bed again?”

Dave’s head snaps up instantly. He levels a glare at her from behind his shades. He is flushed, obvious even in the poor light.

“Oh my god she totally does and all.” Vriska smirks, looking at him from under her lashes.

John smiles hopefully at his friend. “ _Really_? Not that you have anything to be ashamed of! No one’s here to judge you.”

Vriska beams at Dave, enjoying the tight line his lips are making, the white of his knuckles around his glass.

“I am.” She rubs the toe of her shoe up his leg suggestively and waggles her eyebrows. “Not that I am adverse to a bit of roleplay.”

Dave stands abruptly, forcing the table away so he can struggle out from the bench. John’s butterbeer slops over the table; it runs quickly off the sloping surface, dripping into his lap. Dave disappears elbowing his way through the crowd. Vriska can feel colour rising to her cheek, and takes a quick swig of whisky to cover it. John shrugs at her and shuffles along the bench to avoid the spill.

“Right, Mr Egbert,” she says brightly, straightening up. “This is an end of term party; one of us has to pull or we’ve officially failed at being teenagers.”

The rest of the night is spent on Mission: Matchmaker. She spends twenty minutes trying to convince Karkat he secretly longs for Eridan’s sparkly embrace, but she finds him later in a coat rack with John latched onto his face like like a bucktoothed limpet, so her evening’s back to gathering future blackmail material.

John surfaces again when most people have already gone home.

“Shit, Vriska have you seen Dave,” he asks, worrying at his lower lip. “Karkat passed out. He’s sleeping on some coats now but someone needs to take him back to Gryffindor dorm.”

Vriska sighs, and hauls herself up, pulling her dress up at the bust.

“If Karkat is too much of a lightweight to handle an evening of spirits that’s his problem. Leave him in the gutter with the other drunks.”

John laughs, face brightening. “You’ll check outside, right? I think some people were out there.”

“I was entirely serious,” she adds, before stalking outside.

Karkat is sleeping on her cloak so she ducks through the door, bare arms wrapped round herself. It is arse-bitingly cold out as she shuffles through the fresh snowfall. It is late enough that the only light is the faint glow of the sparse streetlamps; the rest of the street is shuttered up and dark, devoid of human presence. A shiver forces its way up her spine. The feeling has gone from her feet already. Clearly no one in their right mind would be out here. She turns to go back inside and forcibly retrieve her cloak when she notices a deeper shadow half spilling out of the alley that runs to the mews at the back of the shops. She catches a glimpse of silver around head height.

“Bloody Strider,” she is mumbling under her breath, “lurking like great big pretentious pillock he should take fucking Eridan for company and they can pose together - STRIDER.”

The last word is hollered at the recalcitrant shadow. The flash of silver moves, and then Dave is emerging into the weak lamplight. He is fucked up. As he steps out he kicks over the empty vodka bottle and stumbles into the wall. The alcohol is the only thing that’s been keeping him warm. He is cloakless too, though better off than Vriska, in his jeans and pullover. He is less than steady on his feet, swaying gently as he tries to look at her.

The situation is feeling worryingly familiar, when Dave convulses, and vomits down her front for the second time that term.

The rant she had prepared about Your Stupid Roommate is gone from her head in an instant. Dave coughs, half doubled over and spits into the snow.

“Wow, okay, this really needs to stop being a thing.”

He leans against the wall. “Oh fuck off.”

“Those are some really ill beats you laid on me there. How I wish I had your way with words.”

With some effort he straightens up and points an accusatory finger at her. It weaves somewhat, moving between her nose and breasts.

“Fuck you fuck all of you.”

“Ha, all _eight_ of me?”

“Shut up Vriska, stop making noises with your stupid face. No one wants to hear anything you have to say. Go ruin someone else’s life.”

His drunk rage is pockmarked with a hiccup and slurring but he makes his point with liberal use of his finger, poking her on her sternum. He makes a sudden lunge at her and she’s tripping back in her heels. But’s it’s not the fresh vomit attack she expecting.

Dave’s chapped lips are pressed against hers. He smells of vomit, sharp and acidic. She can feel the heat radiating from his skin, hotter in contrast with the frost brittle air. It is not that time slows but rather her reaction speed. The first thought she comes up with is eugh god vomit kiss is the worst. Then, bubbling up from some unwelcome source of comprehension, it clicks.

Love potion.

Right.

She wedges her hands up between them and forcefully levers him away. Her skin is puckered with gooseflesh, like she is shrivelling up, trying to shy away from the cold.

“Fuck that is so gross, Strider.”

He looks at her mournfully, cheeks bright red spots and sunglasses halfway down his nose.

“I know. God I don’t even know why I want to do that but I really really do. Shit. I need more alcohol.”

She folds her arms as an excuse to tuck her hands under her armpits.

“Yeah I meant you putting vomit in my mouth but thanks a bunch. I’m glad to know I repulse you.”

“You repulse me like you don’t even know. Where’s my vodka? Fuck.”

“It’s cauterising your liver as we speak.”

The firewhisky haze of half an hour before seems like some distant memory. She is painfully sober. John chooses that moment to come outside and she turns on one spiked heel. She is getting her cloak and getting the hell away from this clusterfuck.

“Dave!” John is bounding over to him as she stalks back into the pub.

“Thank fuck,” she throws over her shoulder. “Your problem now.”

She yanks her cloak out from under Karkat, and goes out the back. With a handful of snow she wipes off as much of the sick as she can. It has crusted onto her dress. There is no one around so she wriggles out of it under her cloak. She is beginning to feel nauseous herself, starting to feel almost like brain freeze - like her forehead is trapped in a vice. Even the dim lighting along the path back to Hogwarts is too bright for her.

She sits with her bare back against the cold tiles of the Slytherin dorm toilets, cloak over her knees. The fuggy heat of the common room drives her away, seeking the cold porcelain against her cheek, the soles of her feet. She dry retches into a toilet bowl but nothing comes up.

She is still sitting naked on the bathroom floor when a second year comes in before sun rise. Vriska dispatches them with a halfhearted jellylegs hex, and slips into bed before Rose is wakes up.

***

 **Exam Period, Last Summer**

She’d opted for practical revision that year, brewing a batch of polyjuice potion in the hidden compartment of her trunk. She’d been saving a snag of Terezi’s hair for this purpose for two months. She had leaped out of a side corridor pouncing on Terezi and her miserable gaggle of friends and smacked her upside the head, knotting her fingers round a few strands of hair and yanking them out as she went.

“I do not claim to understand your tiny mind, Serket, but I would suggest fucking off right now,” she snapped, deducting back all the points Rose earned in Charms that morning.

Vriska cheerfully explained that John told had told her about happy slapping and okay fine she didn’t have a camering-phone or whatever it was he was talking about but still she had done it in front of people and it was hilarious so basically mission accomplished. What is your problem, Pyrope.

She dropped these hairs into the entirely unappealing mug of potion sludge. After half an hour listing possible plans, she had settled for streaking the Great Hall as the OWL results were posted. She thought it was a pretty excellent plan, and if things were the other way round she would have been ready to scratch someone’s face off. It was a certified success; one student accidentally set his own eyebrows on fire with a misplaced warming charm, and by supper, the whole school was talking about it.

She sidled over to Terezi the next morning in Potions revision class, with a few smart quips about repressed desires cribbed from Rose. Terezi just laughed, and said she was glad she could help enable Vriska in the expression of her repressed desire to flash Fifth Years.

“Exhibitionist,” spat Vriska, as she flounced off to the stock cupboard.

She watched her over her shoulder as she gathered her ingredients. Dave’s arm was wrapped around Terezi’s waist, their fingers looped together. Terezi was learning forward, stupid knife-drawer grin plastered across her face, talking to the people sitting in front of them. Vriska swept her ingredients into her cauldron, and began to set up at one of the desks at the back of the room.

***

 **Second Term, Seventh Year**

He comes to the Slytherin common room one evening in early January, soon after they’ve arrived back, his face schooled blank. He shifts his weight between the balls of his feet, with but an awkward, impatient air as he demands she come talk to him about their car crash of a charms project. He sits on a desk in an empty classroom, feet up on the bench, staring straight down between his legs. Though she can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, she can tell he’s not been sleeping. He looks somehow grey-washed, translucent.

“I need to see you,” he says.

She hoists herself up onto the desk opposite, interlacing her legs with his on the bench.

“Then get an eyeful. I’m right here.”

He passes a hand over his face, and looks up. His mouth a fraction open, about to speak, but he seems frozen by the sight of her. He swallows, and she watches the movement of the column of his throat.

“I don’t understand it. I… If I don’t see you it - it feels like my chest is a car crusher compressing my insides up into some little fucking cube of cheap metal and rubber. And I don’t fucking get why. I don’t want to feel like this. I try fucking hard to not feel like this but it doesn’t do shit and here I am. Desperate for a moment of your shitty presence. Fuck.”

He looks over her shoulder, mouth twisting.

“Ooh Mr Strider, what a romantic you are,” she says with forced levity. “Excuse me while I tremble with passion.”

“Shut up, I’m serious. I need to see you. Fuck knows why but I do.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Here’s how I see this working. We’re going to study together. Do this stupid project. I’ll meet you here every night at eight. Okay?”

Vriska doesn’t answer directly. She stands up and presses her lips to his. He tenses momentarily, the softens into her, one hand coming up to cup the back of her head. His mouth opens and she takes her chance to slip in her tongue. He’s a pretty good kisser. She tries not to think about what that means about all the practice he’s got with that blind freak of a girlfriend. He’s kissing _her_ now. Her tongue in his mouth; her teeth biting his lower lip. She wants to mark him, leave bruises down his neck. Next time, she thinks. Right now, she’ll leave him flustered and desperately confused. She pulls back from the kiss and he tries to follow but she holds him with her hands on his shoulders. She leans forward, bringing her mouth to his ear. On a whim she takes the lobe into her mouth, pressing her tongue against it, her teeth, sucking softly. He shudders against her and she whispers _see you tomorrow_ before sauntering out of the classroom.

Mission a-fucking-complished.

***

To Vriska’s surprise they actually get more studying done than she would have expected. Dave seems to have some sort of deal with himself where after so many pages of notes taken, he can put his hand up her shirt. It works this way for four nights, until they are interrupted. She is straddling Dave where he sits on a desk. They are firmly at second base, when over his shoulder she sees the door to the classroom open. Terezi is holding the textbook Dave forgot to bring to their ‘study session’. Vriska freezes for a second, before she realise Dave hasn’t heard the door open. He is still kissing her with a fervour. Terezi is standing there, mouth a small o of shock. Vriska meets her eye, and raises and eyebrow as she slides a hand along the muscles of Dave’s back under his shirt.

Terezi’s posture shifts, shoulders squaring and her lips form a hard, black line. Her wand is in her hand, and she’s raising it, mouthing something Vriska half catches.

“ _Petrificus totatlus._ ”

Vriska freezes for a second time, arm trapped at an awkward angle behind Dave’s back. Terezi shoots her a grin that is half way to a snarl, before vanishing.

They’re not found until next morning when a class of third year Hufflepuffs stream in.

Dave is a cloud of uneasy silence beside her as they make their stiff legged way down to catch the tail end of breakfast. She tries to hold his hand and laughs when he pushes her away.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he spits. “Fuck, what am I doing.”

Terezi is still at the Gryffindor table when they arrive, destroying pieces of toast. Vriska settles herself with a pint of coffee. She thinks she slept maybe an hour or two last night. Eridan is a few seats down drinking tiny cups of espresso thick enough to stand a spoon upright in. He gives her a condescending look, leaning towards her at just the right angle that his prefect badge catches the light.

“I hear certain people didn’t come back all night. You look like shit.”

He is trying to look stern and all oh Vriska how far you have fallen while fishing for gossip. She is not in the mood for his particular brand of horsecrap right now, so she leans forward conspiratorially.

“Kinda saddle sore, if you know what I mean.”

She winks and he looks scandalised. She leans back against the table, stretching out her aching legs, mug of coffee warming her hands. Dave is slinking over to the Gryffindor table, working his way up to talking to Terezi. She can’t hear what he says from his distance, but her reply is clear as a bell. Terezi has angled a corrosive acid look at him.

“I must be hallucinating, because it appears that you have thought that I have any interest in hearing anything you have to say. ”

Dave seems to flinch. “Uh.”

She pushes her plate of toast crumbs away and stands. “Inspired. An excuse for the ages. Lesser cheating shits will come to you and ask for the wise words of Dave Strider. Oh tell me, oracle of adulterous insight, shed light on my calamitous situation. Well, you’ll say, you could try good, old-fashioned mumbling.”

Vriska takes a noisy slurp of coffee.

“Oh give him a break, Pyrope, it’s a miracle anyone can resist my sexy charms.”

Terezi rounds on her immediately, wand thrust out before her.

“I would advise you to keep your filthy mouth shut, Serket. You’ve done enough with that already.”

Vriska yawns and puts her coffee down with a clunk on the ancient wood.

“Oh I would love to see you try it.” She stands, making a show of stretching, rolling her shoulders before taking her own wand out. “Just admit it. You are jealous of all this awesome you will never come close to rivalling. It’s only natural Dave would want to get with this after making do with your uptight arse.”

Terezi fires off a hex that skims past her arm and shatters the coffee pot behind her. She can feel the heat of the hex spreading up her arm. Without missing a beat she sends back two in rapid succession. They are stopped from an all out dual in seconds flat by Professor Renegade. Vriska blows a kiss to Dave as she and Terezi are lead off in opposite directions to be sanctioned.

***

Unsurprisingly Dave does not turn up that evening to their rendezvous. Vriska saunters up to the Gryffindor common room with no real plan.

Jade is sent out to tell her, “um, now’s not really a good time.” She peers down at Vriska through her round glasses. “you probably shouldn’t come round here again. That was a really shitty thing you did,” she adds, corners of her mouth turned down.

Vriska rolls her eyes and slopes off back to the Slytherin common room.

She next sees them in Herbology, the following week. When he goes to get more compost from the bag in the corner she sidles up to him. They are hidden from view of the rest of the greenhouse by a particularly verdant shrub. He holds his trowel in front of him like it is a weapon. He is ready to bolt but she cuts him off.

“Hey, stop! I waited for you last night. Don’t you want to… study anymore?” She asks innocently.

He is watching her mouth, distracted by the movements of her lips. His eyes slide down to her chest, then snap away.

“Fuck no come on brain, work.” He levels his gaze at her, careful to look at a point somewhere on her forehead. “No, fuck Charms. I’ll fail it. I don’t care, I’m not spending another second of my life near you.”

Her hand curls around her wand in her pocket.

“Come on, Dave, I wasn’t the only one enjoying myself, that’s for sure.” She walks the fingers of her free hand up his chest, sliding them along the column of his neck. “I thought you _had_ to see me.”

She can feel his pulse thrumming under his skin.

“No… No I. God why is this so hard. I have to stay away from you.”

He pushes her hand away, but she catches his fingers, twining them, and pulls him down for a slow kiss. He bites her lip, and pushes her back; her hip slams bruisingly hard into a stack of pots. Her wand is out of her pocket in seconds, her lips moving before he can take a stumbling step back.

“ _Imperio_.”

Her voice is barely more than a whisper, but he stops; his features slacken, eyes staring vacantly through the greenhouse glass.

She trembles, a shudder sliding through her and she drops her wand. He stands there as she bends and retrieves it from the dirt covered stones. As she straightens, through the fronds of the plant that hides them she sees Terezi, teeth bared in a grin as she snips cuttings from the wormwood.

Wand again in hand, she stands face to face with Dave. He is breathing shallowly, lips slightly parted.

“Break up with her,” she murmurs.

He turns on his heel and crosses the short distance where Terezi is stood, talking to Karkat.

“I’m done,” he says.

Terezi quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Dave, I may be blind, but I am not a gullible fool. You still have your aconite to repot. Hiding it behind the compost heap won’t change that.”

“No,” he interrupts. “I mean I’m done with us.”

She stares at him, then tilts her chin up slightly.

“Your wit dazzles me, but forgive me if the intricacies of human humour escape me occasionally.” Her jaw is tense, all blade-like cheek and collar bones.

“I’m not joking. This is me. Breaking up with you. Do you get it now.”

The cutting between her fingers is getting mangled and crushed, green juices running down her hand.

“… _Fuck_ you,” she spits.

She throws the ruined leaves at him, and flees from the greenhouse. He stands there, suddenly awkward. Karkat is staring at him, mouth hanging open. Dave turns to the work bench and begins to repot the aconite. Vriska slides further back behind the shrub, and watches through the leaves.

***

That evening, she waits for him on the staircase to the Gryffindor common room from the entrance hall. He emerges after dinner alone, and she pops out from behind a pillar.

“So I guess your little moral conflict has been resolved.”

She hooks her arm though his.

“Fuck you.” He sounds tired, the response so familiar it has lost its venom.

“Must be easier now you can rest your poor, tortured conscience.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fancy a drink tonight?” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Now we can be official and all. Three Broomsticks at nine?”

“Fuck you.”

She leans up to peck him on the cheek.

“Only if you buy me dinner first.”

***

At eight fifteen she is trying to decide what reason she’ll give if anyone finds her drinking alone on a school night. There is a slightly grubby old man at the bar who keeps giving admiring glances down her top. She hunches her shoulders, and draws her cloak around her.

At eight twenty, Dave slopes in, a smudge of blonde hair and black cloak, then sinks into the seat beside her. She slides up so their thighs are pressed together. He stares at the woodgrain of the table for a few moments before turning to her and covering her mouth with his. She swallows a squeak of surprise, and lets him put his tongue in her mouth.

They are still entwined when John tries to get their attention by clearing his throat. She pulls back, flushed and glasses askew.

“Hi.”

“Hi!” He is looking between Vriska and Dave, trying to work out who was going to say it first. “So you guys are… uh… and Terezi’s….”

“Out of the picture,” Vriska fills in, smirking. “I told you my sexy tips were the best sexy tips. They work every time.” She winks.

“Right! Yeah. Um, cool. I just.. I guess I didn’t see this coming? But… it’s nice to see my buds getting on!”

He smiles encouragingly at both of them.

“Yes, we are getting on very well, aren’t we Dave?”

He shrugs.

John joins them, and steers the conversation towards Quidditch. Dave is drawn out of his shell on the subject of the Harwich Harriers, to explain to John exactly how wrong-headed and misplaced his affection for the team is.

“Their chasers pass like a sack of puppies getting hit with a stick. Look, John, you're my friend. I'm trying to do you a favour here. You gotta cut your losses and run.”

“What – to the Falmouth Falcons?” says Vriska, crossing her legs. She takes a sip of her drink and waggles her eyebrows at John. “Who are, of course, complete paragons of flying form.”

“Hey.” Dave shoots her a glare. “The Falmouth Falcons don't march to the beat of any one else's drum. They're a rebel force, shaking up the pensioner parade of the big leagues.”

“Is their drum a kazoo, Dave?” Vriska smiles sweetly, while John snickers into his butterbeer.

Dave looks at her, stricken. “I'm fucking shocked and offended here, Serket. Such cutting remarks from one so innocent.”

Vriska gives him a push. “I'm joking, jeeze.”

He shoves her back, and she would swear there is a ghost of a smile on his face. By the time they meander back up to the castle, she thinks she might almost be having fun.

 

***

 **Yuleball, two years ago**

Vriska waited for her, fingers wrapped tightly round the neck of a bottle of fire whisky. She had watched Terezi all evening from the secrecy of her alcove. Watched her stick her tongue down Dave’s throat; take her shoes off half way through the ball and lob them at Eridan when he tried to drunkenly grab Rose’s chest; dance with Karkat looking like a rubix cube Karkat was drunkenly trying to solve. She had hidden behind the curtain, nursing her drink, and rephrasing the conversation they would have over and over again in her head. Terezi passed her alcove late in the evening, when Vriska has made a great dent in her drink; she shot out a hand to wrap around Terezi’s wrist and drag her into the shadows.

“You’re ignoring me.”

Terezi recoiled, her nose wrinkling.

“You’re drunk.” She pulled her wrist out of Vriska’s grasp. “Go to bed.”

“You should be spending time with me but you’re hanging out with those idiots,” slurred Vriska.

They are my friends, I am going to spend time with them. And that is really none of your business.” She has lost one earring, the other, a tiny silver dragon enchanted to breath fire, was coughing miniature scarlet fireballs into her hair.

Is _so_ my business. I’m trying to tell you this for your own good.” She grasps Terezi's bare shoulder. Her skin was hot and slick under Vriska's fingers. She had drunk enough that her hands were almost numb. Her face tingled, her lips felt like rubber. “You’re better than them.”

I have been known to defend your more unsavoury comments on occasion, but sometime you make it a very difficult job.”

Aww, stop being so serious. Come on, let’s go spike the punch.” She waved her bottle of whisky. “They’ll never know what hit ‘em.”

Terezi snatched the half empty bottle out of her hand. “Jesus, Vriska, how much of this have you drunk?”

Vriska snatched the firewhiskey back, the amber liquid swishing around the thick glass as she gestures in a wild shrug. “I don't know, a lot. Some. None. Does it really matter. Look - don’t go. Hang out with me. We never hang out.”

We hang out all the time.”

You hang out with them more.”

Terezi frowned, wrapping her arms around herself. It was colder in the alcove, pressed up close to the ancient stone. “This is not a _competition_.”

Vriska squeezed her shoulder, slipping a finger underneath the strap of Terezi's dress. “But I’m your favourite, right? You like me best.” She could feel her shoulder tense underneath her hand, the muscles bunching.

I don't have a favourite. You are all my friends. I like all of you.”

Is Dave your favourite?”

Terezi pulled her hand off her shoulder. “This conversation is over.”

Whatever,” spat Vriska. “Fuck you. Self-righteous, know it all bitch.”

Terezi stiffens, jaw clenching. “Go to bed, Vriska,” she snaps.

She turns on her heal, and stalks out from behind the curtain, leaving Vriska slumped against the wall.

***

 **Second Term, Seventh Year**

February is still frosting the windows when he starts coming to the Slytherin common room on a nightly basis. To talk to Rose, he says, but by the end of the week he’s running thin on excuses. Vriska arranges herself across his lap on the Friday evening, slinging an arm around his shoulder to run her hand through the fine hair at the nape of his neck. He keeps talking to Rose about his current photography project, while her needles clack. His hand comes to rest on Vriska’s thigh and he leaves it there. She can see Rose trying not to look at where her brother’s thumb is sliding under the hem of her skirt.

“So, you trying to be a honorary Slytherin now or something?” she asks, scratching her thumb nail along the shell of his ear.

He shrugs to try and dislodge her hand.

“Nope. Just spending some quality time with my sister.”

Rose arches an eyebrow as she begins to cast off.

“Which is why this term you’ve only come to talk to me once before this week.”

He levels his shaded gaze at her. “Hey, whose side are you on.”

“Not necessarily yours,” she says neatly. “Although, after what you did I’m not surprised that you don’t want to pass your evenings amongst your fellow housemates.”

Dave shifts in the over stuffed arm chair. “Whatever. I’ll get out then if I’m in your way.”

He turfs Vriska off his lap and leaves. Changing into their pyjamas before bed that night, Rose catches her eye.

“So you and my brother are…?”

“Yep he’s going out with me now, not Pyrope.” She flings herself across her bed, looking at Rose upside down. “I mean it’s obvious why,” she gestures to herself.

Rose snorts.

“The question is, did he start going out with you before or after he stopped going out with Terezi?”

Vriska scowls. “Intensely none of your business.”

Rose folds her robes, and hangs them up in the wardrobe.

“He _is_ my brother.”

“And he’s _my_ boyfriend, so sod off.”

She flicks the curtains shut around her bed with a twitch of her wand.

Dave doesn’t show for a few days, then he’s back, taking over the wingback chair to the left of the fireplace, which sheds more stuffing from the rips in its leather each time he throws himself down into it. Vriska waits anything between five and thirty minutes before she ensconces herself on his lap. She holds court from their position by the fire, dispatching her network of second year minions on various troublemaking missions. They spend several evenings exploring the subtleties of Exploding Cheat, and Dave crows every time he beats her. She can punch him in the arm, or bite his lip when they kiss in revenge, and he still smiles at her.

***

The Muggle studies trip to Dufftown departs from Hogsmeade on the last weekend of February in a decrepit coach that smells of boiled sweet and corned beef. Vriska and John are consigned to teacher supervised seat at the front. Dave slopes up five minutes before the bus leaves. Vriska slaps his arse he goes by, and he only glares briefly as he removes her hand. The only spare seat is by Terezi. There is a momentary hush while the coach as one waits to see what happens. Terezi moves her bag and stares out of the window. Vriska watches over the rows of garishly upholstered seats as Dave puts on his headphones.

They arrive at Dufftown in a fine mist of drizzle. The town is little more than a cluster of low slate coloured buildings around a clock tower. Lining up alongside the coach a cold wind whips around Vriska’s legs and under her skirt. Vriska is paired with Rose and they are sent on their assignment to purchase a pint of milk. Dave and Terezi are sent to post a letter, Dave’s mouth a thin line as Terezi manhandles him towards the post office. Rose clears her throat and Vriska pretends she wasn’t watching the way Dave’s mouth turns up at some inaudible comment.

In the Spa, Vriska paws her way through the magazines by the counter, and Rose threatens to tie her up outside with the dogs if she doesn’t behave herself. Rose makes neat work of selecting a pint of semi-skimmed and carefully counts out the handful of oddly shaped coins they were supplied with at the start of the trip. Rose buys tea in a styrofoam cup at the cafe next door with the rest of the money - “Stop showing off,” grumbles Vriska - and they sit on a bench by the clock tower passing the tea between them to wrap their wind chilled hands around it.

The group slowly trickles back, clutching newspapers and bus tickets and stamps, discussing the spoils of their expedition. Dave arrives back with the Dufftown postcode written on his forehead and packing tape stuck to his chin. Vriska can see them laughing together as they cross the town square. She takes care to knock into Terezi as they file back onto the coach, spilling the last of the tea down Terezi’s coat.

Dave follows her back to the Slytherin common room. It’s supper time, and the sole occupant is a third year hunched over a potions assignment.

“Out,” snaps Vriska, and the kid scrambles up from his chair and through the door to the boys’ dorms.

She turns on Dave. “What the hell was that?”

Dave shoves his hands in his pockets. “What was what? I thought you wanted the lower years scared of you?”

“That giggly school-trip-hijinks bullshit you pulled with Pyrope. What the fuck was that about.”

She is holding onto the back of a chair, digging her nails into the upholstery. He leans against a table, legs crossed at the ankles.

“How about: you’re not in charge of my friends. How about we start with that.”

The fire has been built up high and it is unbearably stuffy in the common room. He pulls at his collar, popping the button open and loosening his tie.

“You’re _my_ boyfriend. You shouldn’t hang out with her.” She bristles behind the chair.

“We were randomly paired on a school assignment, chillax.”

“You think I’m stupid.”

“Delusional maybe,” he snorts.

“Shut up.” She is quivering, taut like a drawn bow. “Shut. Up. You humiliated me.”

“I did jack shit. Terezi’s been my friend for years, I’m not just going to stop talking to her cause you say so.” His voice rises, cool lost a few miles back down the road, and coming up on pissed off.

“You should. You should do anything I say.”

Dave stares at her. His relaxed posture is betrayed by the tense set of his jaw.

“Shit doesn’t work like that, Vriska.” He stands straight, taking his hands from his pockets. “I’m going.”

She starts forward, grabbing for his wrist. “No, stay. You have to stay.”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything. I thought we covered that already.” He tries to pull his hand free but she digs her nails in. “Ow, fuck, let go.”

She loosens her grasp. She can see the dark smudge of her reflection in his shades. He is massaging his hand, trying to rub out the red crescents of her nail marks. Her hand has gone to her pocket, to the wand there.

“Stay,” she whispers.

“No, fuck that. What’s _wrong_ with you.

He turns to leave, and she is standing again, wand in hand looking at the strands of his hair that curl over his collar.

“ _Obliviate_.”

She’s not sure if anything’s happened. He’s stopped in the middle of the common room, back to her.

“Stay?” she says tentatively.

He shoots a smirk over his shoulder, hands returning to his pockets.

“No need to beg, baby, I’m going nowhere.”

She exhales shakily, sliding her wand back inside her pocket behind the cover of the arm chair.

“I was just,” he casts around him, face falling, and glances briefly at the entranceway, “taking a walk to cool off. You know what you do to my delicate sensibilities with all that hotness you’re hauling round.”

She smiles at him, lip curling as she takes hold of his tie and pulls him over. He covers her mouth with his and she lets him tangle one hand in her hair, while guiding the other under the edge of her shirt. She digs her nails into his hand to cover the marks not yet faded.

***

She loses her virginity to him. It’s clearly not his first time, and she can’t help but think about where he got his practice. She lies on her back and feels crushed into the mattress by him. It hurts, and she finds blood when she cleans herself up in the bathroom afterwards. Sleeping with Dave that first time is horrible and vulnerable and terrifying and she’s not sure how she feels about it. After a morning’s consideration during Potions, she decides that orgasms are great, no two ways about it. She kicked him out of her room that time, pallid and nauseous and _scared_. Vriska Serket does not get scared. Vriska Serket does not lose. She is not beaten.

She corners him in the changing rooms at the Quidditch pitch after practice, and it turns out Dave Strider has a thing for Quidditch gear. They run out of things to say to each other quite quickly most days, and sex seems the best way to fill the time. But no missionary slow soft gently. Up against a wall in a potions stock cupboard. Riding him making the four poster creak. On her hands and knees on the stone floor of the Slytherin dungeon. But not on her back. Not splayed under him.

The sex was hot. Fumbled and often naive, but hot. She would catch his eye as they passed in a corridor, then he was pressing hot open mouthed kisses into her neck up against the wall. Walls, walls were good. She liked being up against a wall. It meant they were both standing, she could dictate the speed of play, and see what was going on elsewhere. He would bolt like some startled creature at the smallest noise, he was still scared of getting caught.

***

Sometimes it is like her wand finds its way into her hand of its own volition. He tells her he’s too busy to see her, that she is out of line, that he’s sick of her manipulative bullshit, and there it is, snug and warm in her palm, and her lips are forming the words before he’s even begun walking away. Then he follows her like a puppy, a step or two behind as she leads him to come and listen to her tell him about the plan she’s hatched to sneak out to Hogsmeade or the gossip her Second Year spies have brought her or just to sit with her while she finishes her Transfiguration homework. Of course, sometimes he follows slightly behind her because he can’t remember the way to Potions or the great hall. John has told her he’s found Dave walking up and down the same staircase unsure which direction the Gryffindor common room is in. She laughs and tells John that’s because he’s not getting enough sleep, “if you know what I mean, wink wink.”

He drops Arithmancy half way through March.

“Too much effort,” he shrugs, when she asks.

Clearing away an experiment in the Potions classroom, she overhears him tell Rose he was asked to leave the class due to his poor marks. Vriska sits down on the bench and concentrates on scraping the last of the dried on murtlap essence from her cauldron. She does not think about the essay Dave got back in class a few hours before. She does not remember the frown that puckered his brow, before crumpling the parchment and stuffing it into his bag.

The bad weather lasts well into April, and the week after they come back from Easter Holidays, Quiddich practice is called off ten minutes in. The Slytherin players seek refuge in the changing rooms where the Gryffindors who have just vacated the pitch are packing up their kit. Rain drums on the low roof of the building, coursing in thick rivulets down the windows. Vriska bends over to squeeze the water from her hair. Her goggle are fogged, and she pushes them up her forehead.

“I heard the Harwich Harriers train in all weather,” grumbles John.

He is sitting on one of the benches servicing his broom. Dave is sitting with him, trying to untangle a knotted clump of twigs on his Silver Lightening. Terezi has changed back into her uniform already, and is rifling through her bag with her back turned.

“Onetime they trained during a thunderstorm, and the snitch got struck by lightening and started moving over three hundred miles an hour. Punched a hole right through their seeker’s hand.”

Rose is carefully peeling off the sopping layers of her kit and hanging them over the broom racks to dry.

“And at try outs they make you fly the whole thing upside down. I’ve been researching for when I try out.”

“I wanted to do the same thing this year with the Slytherin try outs,” says Vriska, as she sits down beside Dave, dripping rain water onto his leg. “But they wouldn’t let me.”

“Again your genius is thwarted by petty bureaucracy,” says Rose, sweetly.

“When I’m Minister of Magic I’ll change that.”

“The day you’re Minster of Magic is the day I blow up parliament,” says Terezi without turning around.

“Now, now, play nicely.” Rose has retrieved a towel, and is drying her hair in sections. “We can all grow up to be whatever we want.”

“Of course,” agrees John. “But we should probably do legal things. Um, I mean, it would seem like a good idea.”

“Quite right, but you needn’t worry about me. I intend to live a quiet life, perhaps open a yarn shop in the Lake District. Knit Peter Rabbit dolls to sell to tourists.”

Vriska snorts, and pulls the broom off Dave’s lap. He relinquishes his grasp on the knotted twigs, and lets her swing her legs up instead. She begins to work on the buckles of her boots. John has finished polishing the stirrups of his broom to a glossy shine, and starts to pack away his servicing kit.

“So what are you doing, Dave, while I’m a famous Quidditch player and Rose is telling wool bunnies?” he asks.

Dave shrugs, his shoulders moving against Vrisks’s.

“Follow my girl to the top. Become a trophy wife.”

“Minister’s wives are allowed to have careers too now,” says Rose. “Shocking, I know. Perhaps you could make someone a comely secretary.”

Dave shrugs. “I said I’m sticking with Vriska, didn’t I? What’s wrong with that.”

Vriska’s fingers fumble on her buckles, stabbing herself under the nail.

“Nothing,” protests John. “It was just a joke.”

“I’ll go where she goes,” he says again. “That’s what you want, isn’t it.”

Vriska glances up to see all eyes on her. Terezi has turned to face them, fingers twisting in the material of her bag.

“Uh. Sure,” she says, finally loosing one buckle with her wet fingers. “But you can do other stuff, if you want.”

“I don’t want to do other stuff.” His voice is thickening now, mouth turning down at the edges.

“But what about - “ Terezi falters mid-sentence. She has taken half a step forward, moving gingerly at the edge of their group. “What about what you told me about becoming a photographer. All those photos you showed me.”

Dave’s jaw tenses. His thumb slides over Vriska’s knee, where his hand rests. He inclines his head towards her slightly.

“Did I say that? I can’t remember that.”

Vriska glances up, catching Terezi’s expression, then swallows.

“I - I think you probably did say that, yeah. You used to take a lot of pictures, before - “

She clamps her lips shut and goes back to work on her boots, yanking the laces free. She hears the rapid slap of Terezi’s shoes on the changing room floor behind her, then the door slamming shut.

***

 **First Weekend of October, Third Year**

There were four of them clustered by the gate when Vriska came down the stairs. Golden leaves were swept into haphazard heaps around the courtyard, drifting across the flagstones in the wind. Terezi waved her over, and Vriska kicked her way through the leaves to join them. She recognised the other students from shared classes, but hadn’t spoken to them before. There was the weird blond chaser, perpetually in shades, from the Gryffindor team who she’d seen pickling mice in the dungeons on more than one occasion.

The path to Hogsmeade was half dissolved into mud from the heavy rain of the past few days. They picked their way along the verge where the grass held the ground solid. Terezi was chattering away with Karkat, teasing him about his fastidious avoidance of the puddles.

“There’s nothing weird about not wanting to soak my feet in stagnant bilge then squelch around in it for the rest of the day,” he glowered.

Terezi elbowed him, and he nearly stumbled into a small puddle still edged with frost. He righted himself at the last moment, then shoved her back. Their laughter clouded in the icy air.

If anything, it was worse in Hogsmeade, where the road had been churned up by countless passing feet. They were navigating a patchwork of flooded potholes when Vriska saw her chance. Karkat was trapped between two iced-over potholes, dithering. Terezi was watching from her safe path along the shop fronts. Sidestepping tyre tracks, Vriska came up behind Karkat, to give him a forceful shove in the small of his back. Surprised, he lurched forward, and pitched face first into a wide puddle. He spluttered, blowing bubbles into the brown water. Vriska doubled up laughing.

“What the hell, Serket!” He struggled up, murky water dripping off his nose.

“It’s a joke,” she wheezed. “You should see your face. Did you see that, Terezi? He looks like he’s swallowed half the puddle.”

Terezi helped Karkat out of the mud that was sucking at his feet, mouth a tight line.

“Yes, I saw.”

“Yeah, not a fucking funny one,” snapped Karkat, scraping the mud from his face. “I’m going to freeze to death, a big shitty brown icicle.”

She snorted in laughter again. “Oh come on. You were asking for it, being so prissy about a bit of water. It’s character building.”

“There was no need to push him right in,” said Terezi.

“You did the same thing!”

“I didn’t knock him over.”

“Whatever.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I’ll see you losers later. Got to see a man about a levitating dog.”

She picked her way through the street towards Zonko’s, face hot in the sharp wind. She did not look back until she reached the doorway, but when she did they were already gone.

***

 **Third Term, Seventh Year**

Vriska is sitting cross legged on the stone bench of the Astronomy Tower, her notebook open in her lap, when the door squeaks open. Terezi is standing in the doorway, face hidden in the shadows cast by the torch burning in the wall sconce behind her. Vriska pushes the telescope away from her eye, leaving her hand tentatively on the eye piece as Terezi shuts the door behind her. Spring has failed to materialise, and she is wearing a scarf and hat against the cool winds that still whipped through the tower’s glassless windows. The only light is small luminous globe Vriska has cast to hover above her head.

“Hello.” Terezi begins to raise her hand, then drops it.

Vriska lets go of the telescope, and flicks her wand to send the glowing ball drifting up to the ceiling in a slowly expanding halo.

“Hi.”

“I would like to speak with you.”

Vriska shuts her notebook, grip tightening on the spiral binder.

“Sure.” She shrugs. “No one’s stopping you.”

Terezi frowns, then biting her tongue, sits down on the bench on the other side of the window.

“Very well.”

The spiral wire is digging tracks into the flesh of Vriska’s fingers. Terezi’s hair is oddly flattened down by her hats, locks that normally frame her face shoved back behind her ears.

“About… ?” Vriska gestures for her to speak.

“I wanted to speak with you about Dave.”

Vriska carefully places her notebook on her lap, smoothing out the creases in her skirt.

“Oh right. How’s that conversation going to go then?”

Terezi is fiddling with a loose strand of yarn in her scarf, tugging it, then letting it go.

“I am concerned about him. I would ask you to refrain from any smart lines, I am quite aware of how this looks.”

She keeps her voice calm and steady while she speaks, but as soon as silence falls again, her fingers go back to the strand of yarn. Vriska stares at her, chest tight. She takes a couple of slow breaths.

“Which is like you’re here to fill me in on what I’m doing wrong.”

“You are in need of some instruction,” snaps Terezi, before pulling herself up short.

Vriska has never seen her take such care with her words. Or rather, she has never seen the selection process at work before. She is speaking as thought she is taking each word and feeling the shape of it, the weight of it in her mouth before she puts it in to play.

Terezi starts again. “I heard he dropped Arithmancy.”

“It’s not my fault,” Vriska snaps.

The luminous ball bobs over her head, fizzing with each word.

Terezi raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t say it was. I will speak frankly. You have something I love. Someone. Whatever my personal feelings about what happened, let me make one thing clear, I would rather see him happy with you than miserable with me.” She has dropped the thread of her scarf and folded her hands in her lap. “I am worried. _Something_ is wrong, and as I am willing to admit, I am not longer in a position to do anything about it. But you are.”

“Yeah, I am.” Vriska’s fingernails are digging into the skin of her thighs around the edge of the notebook. Her stomach is a tight knot, forcing its way up her throat. “You don’t trust me with him - I get it. You think I can’t do anything right, but I can. Everything’s fine.”

“Fine,” snaps Terezi. Her face is marked out in dark brush strokes. The firm arch of her eyebrows, the brush of her eyelashes and the hard line of her mouth. She stands up, skirt crumpled from where she’s sat on it. “I’ve said what I came to say.”

“Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.”

Terezi snorts and pointedly leaves the door wide open. When she is gone Vriska starts up, knocking her notebook to the floor. She bites her lip till she winces, then leans forwards over the window ledge, hair falling around her face. The wind stings her cheeks as she dry retches.

***

Exams arrive in May, alongside the summer weather which has chosen to leapfrog spring, and the Slytherin common room becomes a shrine to colour coded notes and precarious text book towers. Vriska spends a week in the Astronomy Tower making inaccurate charts tracking the path of Jupiter. She returns to the common room with something that nearly passes for useful revision material to realise she’s not seen Dave outside of classes in a week. She finds him in the great hall when she goes on a coffee run, sitting opposite Terezi at the Gryffindor table. They have books and notepads spread out between then, garnished with chewed quills and empty ink pots. Dave’s hunched forward, brows drawn together. Terezi is pointing to things in the book open between them and gesturing forcefully. Dave snorts and makes a comment Vriska can’t hear. Terezi punches him on the shoulder, which just makes him laugh more.

She puts her coffee mission aside and finds John in the Hufflepuff common room enchanting his ink different colours, ignoring divination revision.

“What do you want my invisibility cloak for?” he shoves his glasses up his nose.

“Never you mind. It’s all in a good cause.”

He shrugs, and hands the slippery bundle of fabric over.

She puts the cloak on in the second floor girl’s toilets, and makes her way back to the great hall. She climbs up onto the table and sits a foot away from Dave and Terezi. Terezi is explaining the finer points of biological transfiguration theory while he doodles cartoon quidditch players in the corner of his notebook.

“It’s a simple equation of the mutability of non organic matter as compared to that of organic matter, so you have to - Dave.” Terezi flicks a balled up piece of parchment at his head. “Pay attention.”

He puts down his quill and pushes his hair out of his eyes. “I’m trying. This shit just don’t want to go in. You say something and five minutes later I’ve forgotten it.”

Terezi frowns. “Which is why I’m trying to teach you study methods. With order, discipline, repetition you can learn anything.”

“Maybe I’m just not meant to do the brainy thing. Leave that to you and my sister.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“Could have fooled me.” He tears out the sheet of paper he had been making notes on and scrunches it up. “Forgot who was on our team last Quidditch practiced and passed the quaffle to the other side.”

Terezi props her quill on the portable inkstand. “You’ve got to keep trying.”

“I am!” his voice rises, anger cutting the words sharp and short. “I am fucking trying, but it doesn’t work.”

She grabs his hand that has balled into a fist and holds it still, pulls him close to her.

“You are capable of doing anything you chose to.” With her free hand, she slides his shades off. “Listen to me.”

Vriska can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Dave’s eyes, and in those times she has never seen them red-rimmed, never seen dark finger-smudges beneath them. She does not know this person. He entwines his fingers with Terezi’s, slides his thumb along hers. She would almost think she could see a shadow of hope in his eyes.

Terezi tenses, then disentangled their hands.

“No, not like that. I didn’t mean that,” she says quietly.

Dave pulls his hand away and goes back to balling up his notes.

“Whatever. I give up. I can’t learn this shit. Stop wasting your time.”

“You’re with Vriska now - “

“I know! I _know_ , alright?” he cuts her off. “You don’t have to tell me that. Some things I have no problem remembering.”

Terezi’s mouth is a thin line, turned down at the corners.

“Fine.” She shuts her book and begins to pack her bag. “Get Rose to help you.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help.”

She stands up, scraping the bench against the stone floor.

“You’re a fucking idiot, sometimes, you know that?”

“Sod off, then.”

Dave goes back to doodling in the corner of his notebook as Terezi stalks off. Vriska edges forward, and looks over his moving hand. He is drawing one face over and over. It is a scrappy cartoon, in his usual style, but it is clear who it is. He has covered the page with drawings of Vriska’s face, quill nib pressed hard enough into the paper it has broken through in places. She sits back on her haunches and chews the inside of her lip.

***

The bedrooms in the Slytherin dungeon have high cut windows, letter box slits up by the ceiling that let in thick slices of sunlight during the day. At night these bars of light become pearlescent, rendering the folds of the bedclothes and curlicues carved into the furniture in chiaroscuro. Dave’s skin and hair are of one shade in his half-light. Vriska props herself up on one elbow to observe the rise and fall of his chest as he sleep. The sharp lines of his features seem to dim and fade while he sleeps. His mouth has softened, his brow smoothed out. She slides the hair back from his temple with her finger tips; drags her nails lightly along the skin of his cheek. His expression doesn’t flicker. She moves her hand further down, coming to press against the skin of his throat. She fits her fingers around his neck. She can feel his adam’s apple against her palm. It is nothing to increase the pressure in her fingers, tighten them until she’s sure she’s leaving bruises.

His eyes are open, she realises. Not much more than a slit, his shades put aside on the night stand. It is too dark to tell if he is looking at her. She eases her fingers off, keeping the pressure light.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to stop,” she whispers.

His tongue moves against his lips, wetting them. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

She swallows the cry, catch it in her throat. Her throat hurts, feels raw and scratchy. She moves her hand away, tucking it up against her side.

“Go to sleep,” she orders, and he shuts his eyes.

Vriska waits until his breathing is even, before curling up against him, resting her head on his shoulder. She watches the bruises rise on his skin as the light seeps from grey to the watery blue of dawn.

***

It is the first Monday after Exams and most of the students are outside enjoying the late arrival of summer. Vriska is in the library, in the restricted section where there are no windows. She has the crumbling potions tome that she has hidden for the year in the false bottom of her trunk clutched before her. There is a gap on the shelf in front of her between _Amortentia and Insanity_ and a squat volume the title of which has been gouged out in chunks from the binding.

Someone clears their throat behind her as she tries to wedge her book back onto the shelf. She startles and the book slips back off the shelf. Scrabbling for it, she brings the books around it tumbling down. Rose is standing in the entrance to the restricted section, stack of books in her arms. She puts them on one of the reading desks and kneels next to Vriska and begins to gather the scattered books.

“Awfully keen for you,” says Rose, straightening the loose cover of _Amortentia and Insanity_ , “I wouldn’t have thought to ever see you in Library again.”

“Ha. Vriska Serket always surprises,” she says weakly.

Rose has reached for the book Vriska had been returning. Vriska clamps down on the urge to snatch it out of her hands. It has fallen open to the page on love potions, and she can see her own spidery writing along the margins. The dank smell of ancient leather bindings and parchment is making her stomach turn. Rose pulls the book over, and move to shut it. She hesitates, and looks at Vriska.

“Avoiding your _boyfriend_? I’ve not seen him in the common room for weeks.”

Vriska shrugs and reaches for the stack of books. “No. Not really. Maybe a bit. I don’t know, okay?”

Rose’s brow arches. “Okay.” She is still holding the book open.

“I’ll put these back.” Vriska pulls the pile towards her. “Give me that one?”

Rose glances down as she shuts the book, then opens it again. “Is this your handwriting?”

“No. Give it here.” Vriska makes a grab for the book but Rose skitters back sharply on her backside.

“It _is_. What did you - _love_ potions?”

She looks up at Vriska, expression darkening.

“I was just doing some extra research.”

Rose’s fingers are dug tight around the book. Vriska watches those sharp eyes narrow, and her heart drums. Rose, who knows more about the contents of the restricted section than any other student, than some of the teachers even.

“P - practical research,” Vriska forces out.

Rose does not blink. “Vriska, what are you talking about. Tell me now and be very clear.”

Vriska swallows the rising bile in her throat, and steadies herself with one hand on the floor.

“I made one. It worked.”

Rose exhales sharply, nostrils flaring.

“I would like to establish that we are both following the same line of discussion here, so forgive me if I seem overly direct or repetitive, but is this your way of telling me you have brewed an illegal potion without proper supervision or direction, and then tested this potential poison on _my brother_?”

“Um.” Vriska balls her hand in the material of her skirt. “Yes. I didn’t mean to - I didn’t think it was going to work.”

“Shut up.”

“I - I think I need your help.”

Rose’s eyes narrow, her lips drawn down in a grimace.

“I said _shut up_ ,” she hisses. “I am trying very hard not to hit you, but bugger that.”

She launches forward, lightening fast and lays the flat of her palm across Vriska’s face. Her cheek and temple are a sharp, stinging line and she bites down on her lip to stop herself retaliating. Rose is breathing heavily, smoothing her hair down with trembling hands.

“I would not have thought you competent enough a witch to brew something so complex with any measure of success,” she is muttering half to herself, straightening her blouse. “Though perhaps it was an error in the brewing process that has caused this adverse affect on his faculties.” She looks at Vriska, head snapping up. “Tell me that is what happened.”

“… Not exactly. That - I think that was … other magic.”

“ _Fuck_.”

For a moment she thinks Rose is going to hit her again, then it passes, and Rose is kneeling neatly, stacking the books. Her hands hold each volume to carefully, too tightly, knuckles whitening. Vriska’s head feels light.

“You can’t tell him.”

“What on _earth_ makes you think you are in a position to tell me what I can and cannot do.” Rose’s voice is low and dangerous.

“You can’t do that to him. You know that. It will be so much worse if he knows.”

Rose relinquishes her grasp on the books, and pinches the bridge of her nose instead.

“I want you to know how much I despise you for being right about that.”

Vriska puts her books on top of the pile. “Understood.”

She stands, and takes the books to the reading desk where Rose’s books from before still sit. She begins to re-shelve them while Rose remains on the floor, staring holes through the bookcase. When she has worked through the pile, Vriska leans against the shelves by Rose, arms crossed in front of her.

“Can you fix him?” she asks, taking careful control of her breathing.

Slow breath in, slow breath out. Hands buried under arms to stop them shaking. Nails dug into blouse. Eyes fixed on a point somewhere above Rose’s head.

“Yes,” she replies quietly. “Probably. Almost definitely.”

Vriska breathes through her mouth, trying not to smell the dead scent of so many centuries old books. The smell clogs up her throat and makes her gullet rise.

“I didn’t mean this to happen.”

Rose looks up at her, face schooled calm again.

“I don’t really give a shit what you _meant_ to do,” she bites out the words. “You did it.”

“I know.”

Rose stands, bare legs almost grey in the poor light.

“Tell me one thing.”

“What?”

“Was it a joke to you?”

Vriska stiffens. “What? No!” She passes and hand through her hair. “Okay… maybe to start with, a bit. I just want to get to Tere - but … he was never a joke. Not really. Oh god, I don’t even know what he was. It just went to _shit_ okay? Fucking shit everywhere and I _don’t know what I’m doing_.” Vriska pulls herself up short. She presses her lips tight, biting them shut.

Rose regards her for a moment, arms folded in mirror image.

“I’m not helping _you_. I’m helping him.”

Vriska nods twice in rapid succession.

“Okay. What do we do.”

***

 **Christmas Holidays, First Year**

Vriska Serket at at the Slytherin table in the great hall, pushing the remains of her mashed potato around her plate. They were cold and dissolving slowly into the gravy. She was alone in the hall save for one or two seventh years half hidden behind stacks of text books. A short girl, half swamped by her robes flung herself in a heap of elbows and spiky hair opposite Vriska, sleeves flapping into the gravy boat.

“I am here to make a polite entreaty that you be my friend before I expire from boredom.”

Vriska put down her fork, and looked at the girl. Her red tinted glasses were wonky on her nose, giving her a quizzical look.

She considered her for a moment. “Okay, what do I get out of this deal?”

“I’ve got three boxes of chocolate frogs and a jar of upside-down powder. Also my scintillating conversation.” She straightened up, pushing her glasses up her nose. “What do you say?”

Vriska counted to five in her head, before giving a short nod.

“I’m Terezi, by the way.” She stuck out her hand.

“Vriska,” she replied, taking it, her own sleeve joining Terezi’s in the gravy boat.

After a brief heated exchange in the entrance hall, they settled on the Gryffindor common room as the arena for their experiments with the upside-down power. Their evening was spent sneaking the powder into 7th years’ coffee and watching as they had breakdowns when they couldn’t revise any more because all the words in their text books were the wrong way up.

Vriska arrived at the Gryffindor common room the next evening, clutching a pack of exploding snap cards. They settled into squishy armchairs by the fireplace and argued their way through the invention of Exploding Cheat, while burning stacks of crumpets.

Vriska laid her cards down firmly.

“Twenty five aces.”

Terezi scowled around a mouthful of crumpet.

“Boring. Cheat.”

“Guess again,” smirked Vriska.

She sucked the butter off her fingers before skewering another crumpet on the end of her toasting fork. Terezi leant forward, scattering crumbs across the table, and flipped over the stack of cards.

“You enchanted these! This doesn’t count.”

“You don’t make the rules. I said twenty five aces and there they are. I didn’t lie.”

Terezi’s lip curled, and she sat back.

“All right.”

Vriska watched carefully as she laid down her next hand, and the one after that. They had gone through the pack and were reshuffling when she thought it was safe to enchant an ace or two.

“Ten aces.”

As she touched the cards to the pile on the table, she saw Terezi lean back fractionally. She had barely registered this oddity when the pack blew up in her face, singeing the crumpet in her other hand to a blackened crust. Terezi was doubling up in laughter.

“What he hell was that!”

“It’s exploding _cheat_. You cheated, you explode!”

Vriska blew frazzled wisps of hair out of her eyes.

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s _hilarious_.”

She managed to keep her dark look for about another ten seconds before collapsing into fits of laughter with her friend.

***

 **Third Term, Seventh Year**

“It’s done.”

Though the sun has finally made an appearance, the wind is still blowing something fierce, and strands of Vriska’s hair are whipped across her face no matter how securely she ties it back. Rose’s hair is short enough that just brushes her cheeks where she stands beside her overlooking the lake. The boats have been drawn out from under their covers, mud stained and still peppered with brittle leaves from the autumn before. Dave is on the pier, pulling a boat along by its mooring rope. Terezi is walking behind him carrying the oars.

Vriska wraps her arms around herself against the wind.

“Is he… is he okay?”

Rose is standing beside her, hands clasped neatly before her.

“The antidote took.”

“Do I… should I… say something?” The wind is snatching the words form her mouth.

Rose turns to her. The collar of her blouse is a little skewed, as though it has been yanked to the side and not properly readjusted. The knot on her tie is not quite centred.

“I told him I believed him to have suffered a rare adverse reaction to one of the materials we used in Potions at the start of the year. The symptoms of this fictitious reaction being irrational behaviour and memory loss. He seemed _very_ glad to hear it.”

Her mouth closes in a sharp line, lips a deep red against the pallor of her skin.

“Right.” Vriska attempts to toss her shoulder, but the wind sends it back immediately. “So I won’t… okay.”

“No, I’d rather you don’t go near him,” Rose says carefully.

“No.”

Dave has reached the end of the pier. The boat is tied loosely to one of the posts, and he is clambering awkwardly into it when he catches sight of them watching. He raises a hand, as if to wave, then drops it. Terezi glances over her shoulder following his line of sight. She holds one hand up to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Did he tell her?”

“Absolutely none of my business. And none of yours either.”

The backs of Vriska’s bare calves are numb from being blasted by the wind. It is a war of attrition between her and the weather, and she’s losing.

“Right.” A curl of her hair has snagged in the frame of her glasses but she doesn’t remove it. “Do you think - “

“Yes?”

Dave helps Terezi into the boat, one hand on the small of her back which she bats away.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Vriska turns into the wind and starts walking.


End file.
